


Honey

by ClosingtheValves



Category: Teen Titans (Animated Series), Teen Titans - All Media Types
Genre: Aged Up, F/M, Mentions of Rape
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:02:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27810451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClosingtheValves/pseuds/ClosingtheValves
Summary: A series of one shots leading up to Garfield Logan and Raven falling in love.
Relationships: Garfield Logan/Raven, Raven/Beast Boy
Comments: 26
Kudos: 83





	1. Chapter 1

“Good morning lovely teammates,” Garfield says, arms raised high in the air as the common room doors open up. He looks amusedly at his friends. Nightwing had stopped in the middle of pouring his coffee, his sleepy, swollen eyes blinking tiredly at him. Cyborg had paused mid chew. Starfire had been in the middle of releasing her hair from her ponytail. They look like a funny little tableau. Changeling chuckles. 

“Sunrise. I thought I’d have to project you into the ocean to wake you up,” Raven says. But she doesn’t look shocked. In fact her eyes are closed and she remains in a semi-meditative state.

“You know today is always a fun day for all of us,” Changeling says, taking his frozen bananas and pineapples out of the freezer. “Rae, do you want me to make you an acai bowl too?” 

“Please,” she says, now dropping her feet delicately on the ground.

“Coming right up,” he says, humming “La Vie en Rose” to himself. “Are we all packed up for today?” he asks, dumping the purple puree into two bowls. 

“The T-Car is stacked with water balloons, books, goodies, gifts, board games. It’s gonna be a good one this year,” Cyborg says, clapping his hands together. Star exclaims something in Tameranean before swirling in the air and gripping Nightwing in a tight hug. He moves his mug out of the way just in time and smiles into her shoulder. Changeling feels a similar exuberance bubbling in his chest. Similar to the feeling he gets when he’s running in animal form.

It was the beginning of their annual field days. Titans from all over the country came together and visited beaches and parks all over the country for a week to partake in summertime activities with foster kids all over the country. This year, festivities started in Jump City. Seeing as most Titans were orphaned or had strained relationships with their own parents, this week always meant a lot to everyone involved in it.

“Bumblebee says they already landed. Says the beach is packed. Are y’all ready to go?” Cyborg says, looking up from the arm he was reading the message from. Starfire is already dragging Nightwing to the car; Changeling hot on their heels. Cyborg sends an amused smile to Raven who is in the middle of placing her empty bowl into the sink. Cyborg cocks his head as Raven bites her lip, lost in thought. 

“You okay Raven?” Cyborg says. Raven shakes her head, dropping the bowl clumsily into the sink. She looks at Cyborg and nods; he looks to her scrunched up eyebrows. She follows his eyesight and rubs her hands over her brows like she’s smoothing out the crinkles in a paper.

“Yeah, you know me and big crowds. Just a little...loud.” Raven says. Cyborg nods, understanding.

“You can leave whenever you want.” Cyborg says. 

“Yeah. I meditated a little more than usual,” Raven says and starts walking towards the T Car. Cyborg senses that something remains unsaid as he follows after her.  
…  
It’s almost 3 pm when Garfield transforms from a tiger back into his human self and jogs to the snack table. He is having the time of his life.

The Titans are good with kids. There is absolutely no denying it. Starfire is radiant and bubbly. She was excited to make as many light spectacles as the children asked her to. Cyborg is great at football. Aqualad is great at sensing multiple children in the water at once. Nightwing is a skilled gymnast and never ran out of energy. Kids loved rocks and Terra could always find the coolest shaped ones to give out. Garfield likes to think the kids loved him as well. He is a walking petting zoo and ever since he started his acting career, the teenagers like hanging out with him too. And Raven...hmm, he hadn’t seen Raven in a while. Changeling looks around, sipping lazily from the almost empty water bottle he has just picked up. And then he spots her.

In typical Raven fashion, she is away from the crowds. She is heading towards a small girl with two cute afro puffs with pink ribbons. The girl’s face is contorted into a pained expression and both her hands are pressed tightly to her ears. She looks maybe four, definitely not older than six.

“That’s Jordan. She’s new to our group home,” says someone approaching Garfield on his left. Garfield looks at the teenage girl with orange pigtails and a shy smile on her face.

“Hi,” the girl says, blushing profusely as if she said something embarrassing. “I-” she clears her throat. “I’m Becca. A volunteer.”

“Hello Becca,” Garfield says cheerfully, a little amused. “You said the girl’s new?”

“Yeah, Jordan came in a couple weeks ago.” 

“How old is she?”

“Five.”

“And she’s-” Garfield hesitates. He doesn’t want to assume. 

“Autistic?” Becca finishes for him. Changeling nods. “Yes, she’s the most loving little girl. She actually loves the Titans. She just hates changes in her routine a little more,” says Becca. As if on cue, Garfield hears a pained screech from the corner of the beach. He cringes and puts down his water bottle. He begins to transition into a hummingbird.

“Wait!” Becca says. Changeling turns to the teen girl.

“Yeah?” he asks. Her blush becomes so severe that it almost obscures all the freckles on her cheeks. 

“Could I-” Garfield swears she squeals. “Could I get an autograph sir?....Please?” she asks looking down at her flip flops. Garfield smiles so widely his cheeks hurt. 

“Of course,” he says, taking the young girl’s clipboard from her. 

“I...um...loved you in that new comedy with Seth Rogan. Me and my mom watched it like thirty times,” she says, still not looking up from her shoes. 

“Thank you,” Garfield says, hoping that the deep gratitude he feels in his heart is seeping into his words. “You are doing amazing work here Becca.” Becca peaks up at Garfield through her lashes, at this point, her face looks painfully red. He chuckles and writes ‘Cute pigtails. Love, Gar.’

“You said her name was Jordan?” Garfield asks. Becca nods. 

“Thank you Becca,” Garfield sings, handing her her clipboard, quickly transforming and flying towards the crying young girl.

Garfield lands on a boulder near Raven and Jordan. He doesn’t want to startle them. He doesn’t make a move, just listens intently for the right time to interject. At this point, Raven has already knelt in front of the young girl who is looking up at Raven with big wet eyes.

“Hi,” Raven says. People have described Raven’s voice in many ways. Monotone. Raspy. Sleepy. But he’s never heard anyone call it gentle. Right now, it’s as soft as the inside of a rose.

“I’m Raven.” Jordan is swaying from foot to foot, tears streaming steadily down her face. “Someone told me your name is Jordan.” Jordan whimpers softly in response, boogers starting to flow from her nose.

“Is it okay if I move your arms?” Raven asks. She is about to move Jordan’s hands from her ears when the girl lets out a heart shattering sob. Raven quickly drops her hands.

“I’m sorry,” Raven says, and Jordan settles down a little. Raven moves a little closer. If it wasn’t for Garfield’s enhanced hearing he wouldn’t be able to hear their conversation.

“You don’t like big crowds do you?” Raven asks softly. “That’s okay, me neither. They can get really loud,” Raven says, placing her own hands over her ears. Raven’s made it clear to the team that she’s an empath but it isn’t really a power people can see. Right now though, Garfield can only see two people who are attempting to see each other on another level. Jordan looks at Raven intently. Tears are still streaming down her face but her full body sobs have quieted down to small intermittent whimpers.

“Your friend Maria-” Raven gestures towards the volunteer about ten feet away. Beast Boy hadn’t even recognized her. “Tells me that you like the ocean. Maybe you and I can float on the ocean together?” Raven asks, getting up and wiping sand off her knees. Raven’s eyes start to glow and suddenly her dark energy forms a solid, raft-like structure. Jordan takes a few fearful steps back.

“It’s okay Jordan, this is safe. We’ll be safe,” Raven says in a very low voice, demonstrating Jordan’s safety by walking onto the raft herself. Jordan looks on in wonder but remains glued to her spot. Garfield figures this is the perfect time to intervene. He transforms himself into a shih tzu and walks slowly over to Jordan. 

“Look Jordan, a dog. Maria says you love dogs too,” Raven says. Garfield didn’t even think Raven recognized he was there the whole time. When Jordan sees the small dog, her hands fall away for her ears. Changeling walks closely to Jordan and nudges at her small palm with his nose. She looks down at Garfield and hums, a small smile breaking onto her face. Garfield feels his body thrum with pride as he snuggles into the young girls legs. She brings two fists up to her now wide smile and squeals loudly. Garfield begins to jump around excitedly, then skillfully leads Jordan onto the dark energy raft that Raven has crafted for them. Jordan squeals again when Raven lifts them off the sandy ground and levitates them over the waves. 

“Eeeee!” Jordan says, swaying from foot to foot as a wave splashes up over Raven’s raft and wets Jordan’s tiny little feet. Garfield runs circles around her. Stopping only so Jordan can rub behind his ears and squeeze him towards her chest. 

And they continue like that for hours, until the sun starts to sink. Changeling wonders more than once, how long Raven can keep this projection going without exhausting herself. Still, it never wavers. In fact Raven occasionally jolts the raft back and forth because Jordan lets out an excited squeal whenever the waves hit her feet. It isn’t until Jordan starts falling asleep, her head falling onto Changeling’s dog form’s back that Raven starts to bring them back to shore. By then, the beach had settled down a little. Many children and volunteers had started heading back home. Changeling turns back into his human form and snuggles the sweet girl to his chest much like she had done before. In an embrace that radiated nothing but affection. Raven let her energy dissolve beneath them.

Maria was waiting at the shore to pick Jordan up. Garfield tried his hardest to move Jordan into Maria’s embrace without waking her up but Jordan shifts in Maria’s arms and wiggles out of her arms. She does a little trott to Raven and squeezes her legs tightly. Raven’s eyes widen, and she places a hand in the space where Jordan’s hair is parted. Changeling swears he sees Raven’s eyes glaze over with tears.

Raven kneels down in front of the girl and places two hands on her shoulders.

“I’ll come see you soon.” Raven promises. Maria scoops the tired girl up in her arms.

“She’s usually never that affectionate with anyone she just meets,” Maria says, smiling warmly at Raven. She places a grateful hand on Raven’s shoulder and walks away.

Garfield feels something catch in his throat as he looks at Raven looking at the departing girl. She’s been curling her hair lately. The curve of her ear poking out from her purple waves of hair is something he never thought he could be transfixed by. Her eyes, still a little wet with happy tears, look even more purple than usual and Garfield is reminded of the posters Rita used to have of portraits of a soft lit Elizabeth Taylor. Raven looks so...soft. Gar swallows past something thick in his throat.  
“You were...really gentle with her,” Garfield says, feeling like he needs to fill the silence with something. Raven looks towards Jordan a little while longer before turning to Garfield to respond. He feels a little like he was punched in the chest when the full weight of her gaze lands on him. It’s like a spotlight. He can’t see anything around it.

“You were too.” Raven says. Garfield gets a sudden flashback of Raven reading with Teether, Melvin and Timmy. 

“You are really good with kids,” Garfield says. He’s talking low because he feels like a louder voice would shatter this delicate moment. Raven shrugs.

“All the Titans are,” Raven says and Garfield feels himself shake his head without even thinking about it.

“But you’re...you’re-” Garfield tries to find the words to describe how Raven was answering every single one of the subtle cues Jordan was giving her. Even the slightest twitch of her lip. It’s like she had answers lined up before Jordan even knew what she wanted. Raven was like that with a lot of people. The word empathetic was jumping around his head but it felt too light on his tongue to truly capture what Raven was to the people around her. She was a salve. Healing. Their missing pieces.  
Raven looked at Garfield expectantly.

“Hey baby,” a voice came from beside them. Changeling felt his arm lift and a figure settle under his shoulder. He saw the blonde hair twinkling in his peripheral vision. He felt sticky lips leave their residue on the corner of his lips. Raven looked expectant for only a few seconds more before she greeted Terra.

“Nice to see you Terra. I’m sure you guys have a lot of catching up to do,” Raven said before moving away from the couple to help Cyborg clean.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Garfield plays with a chain around his neck, looking out at the twinkling skyline of Jump City. The sun is starting to set, weaving brush strokes of purple and yellow between the tall steel buildings. He starts drumming a beat on his thigh.

“...so tomorrow is the big premiere date,” says the woman sitting across from him. He’s deduced that she’s in her mid-sixties from stories she’s shared with him in previous meetings of her own grown children and grandchildren.

“Yeah,” Garfield mumbles, continuing to look out the window. He had a hard time looking at her face. Her eyes were an impossible shade of blue and very hard to read. During their first session he had joked for thirty minutes straight. She had smiled brightly at each one, teeth perfectly straight and blindingly white. Then she asked “So why do you think you joke so often?” and his rehearsed jokes shriveled up in his mouth. That was a year ago, he’s been coming to her bi-weekly ever since.

When she doesn’t say anything for a few moments, Garfield focuses her attention back on her. She’s looking at his hand that’s fiddling with the chain on his neck. He drops it and shuffles in his seat again.

“It was Elastigirl’s,” he says. Irma nods, shrugging to let him know that he doesn’t have to say anymore.

“Who’s coming to the premiere?” she asks.

“Everyone-” he says, then pauses. “‘Cept for Rae. Didn’t want to dress up.” He chuckles, running a hand through his hair. Irma smirks and nods.

“Terra is going I assume?” Irma asks. Garfield nods.

“Yeah, she’s gonna meet me at the premiere. Titans East gave her the night off. She looked for a dress for months.”

“She’s really proud of you.”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t seem excited.”

“No! I am!” Garfield says, his butt rises out of his seat as he rushes to correct her. He plops back down when he notices Irma’s arched brow. 

“I am,” he says again, this time more softly. “Just a little nervous.” 

Irma nods, silently asking him to continue. Garfield runs a hand through his hair.

“It’s my first drama. Up until now casting directors have only casted me in supporting roles for comedies. Mostly as a favor to Nightwing. Or because-” Garfield chuckles but knows Irma would never let him stop the sentence halfway. She looks at him expectantly. “Or, well, because I’m green and the world knows me.” 

“What do you mean?”  
“Everyone knows Changeling,” Garfield shakes his head.“No. They know Beast Boy. So they put me in these movies and it’s almost an afterthought. Like _Oh cool! That superhero was in that movie for five minutes. What’s funnier or more random than a green guy._ But it’s...forgettable.”

“And you’re hoping that this role will be the one that makes people take you seriously.”  
“Yeah! I mean, when I started acting, I know people thought it was a superficial thing. Raven rolled her eyes when I told her about my first role. I don’t think she ever got past how giant my ego got when we went to Tokyo and those girls were my fans. But I was younger than and so thirsty for attention.”

“This role is more than that.”

“Exactly!” Garfield exclaims, his body rising out of his seat. He settles down again. It grows silent for a few seconds. “When I was younger, Elastigirl used to show me all these movies from the 50s. I remember watching  _ Roman Holiday  _ and being completely entranced by how beautiful Audrey Hepburn was-” Garfield pauses, playing with his chain again. “But it’s not just the beauty, it was her air. She was a  **_captivating_ ** actress.” Garfield thinks of how Rita looked in her own films and smirks to himself. She was equally as mesmerizing but he wasn’t going to bring that up to Irma.

“Why did you bring up Raven specifically?” Irma cuts through his thoughts.

“Huh?” Garfield asks, confused by the random question. 

“You brought up Raven specifically. When you talked about your first role.”

Garfield nods slowly, trying to jump ahead to what Irma was getting at.

“Why does her opinion matter?”

“Well she’s my friend.” Garfield says immediately. Irma nods.

“But you didn’t bring up Cyborg or Starfire. Why’d you bring up Raven?”

Garfield pauses, running a hand through his hair. It’s silent for a couple of minutes.

“I guess...well….everything Raven does and says has weight to it. She’s never said anything just to fill time or space,” Garfield feels his forehead scrunch up in concentration. Irma waits. “She’s just...different than me. I don’t know why her opinion matters. I just...I know that all the words that come out of her mouth are honest. Her delivery is shit sometimes,” Garfield chuckles. “A lot of people think she’s rude. But she really holds no anger towards anyone. She’s-”

“Impartial?” Irma offers. Garfield waits a minute to digest that word and then nods. 

“It just...always feels like she’s right. She weighs all of her thoughts before she settles on an opinion.”

“No one can be right always.” Irma says. Garfield shrugs. Irma hums. 

“So what color dress did Terra settle on?” Irma asks. Garfield laughs.

“It’s green but a completely different shade of green than my skin. We won’t match,” Garfield places a hand over his chest, feigning tragedy. Irma laughs.

“Pity,” she jokes and the session continues.

* * *

“How was the workout superstar?” Nightwing asks with a wide smile when Garfield bursts into the common room with a towel around his neck.

“Completely worth all the food I’m gonna eat at the premiere,” Garfield says, laughing as Nightwing’s smile falters immediately. Nightwing always harped on keeping track of your protein intake with the team. And the carbs. And the sugar. Garfield wasn’t sure which he had heard from their leader more, “Titans Go!” or “Food is energy!” Garfield kind of just ate what he wanted. He figured out in his late teens that he could just turn into a different animal that would process and digest the food he ate a little differently. It pissed Nightwing off who would have long talks with him about discipline. Garfield laughed with Irma about it all the time.

Garfield spots Raven with her nose in a book and saunters over with a grin.

“Did you hear that Rae? My premiere is tonight,” Garfield says, stepping just a centimeter into her personal space. Raven snaps her book closed.

“I may have overheard it one of the twenty times you’ve brought it up this past week.”

“Really? Twenty?” Garfield asks, rubbing his chin. “Seems like it should be higher. It’s a pretty big film. Lotta big names.” 

“Mmmm and you,” Raven says, opening her book up again. Garfield chuckles. He takes the book out of Raven’s hands and shuts it, making sure he places a finger in it so he can keep her page. Raven glares at him. Garfield hears Irma’s voice screaming “boundaries” in the back of his head. But he doesn’t think he’s pushed her too far just yet. 

“You know we still have a seat saved for you.” Garfield says. Starfire bursts from the kitchen.

“Oh yes friend it would be glorious. I know we could find you a dress if we left right this instant,” Kori says, hands clasped tightly together in front of her. Garfield cringes internally knowing that dress shopping really wouldn’t be the way to convince Raven. 

“You can wear whatever you like,” he amends, feeling as the finger that was holding her book open twitched nervously. Raven makes direct eye contact with Garfield and he feels himself still completely. 

“You know I would have liked to Garfield but I can’t,” Raven says. Garfield feels his body sink a little.

“I get it Rae,” he says, handing her back her book. And he does. Large crowds were still hard for her. Shouting fans, even worse. “But I’m sorry you’ll miss my academy award winning performance,” he jokes. Raven looks at him seriously for a moment, just long enough for Garfield to question whether she thought he was letting the fame go to his head. Then she smirks impishly, reverting her eyes to the text he placed back in her hands.

“You’re a regular Tom Hanks.” Garfield laughs, almost not recognizing the arm that loops around his. 

“My man is better than Tom Hanks. Ooh sweaty,” Terra says, running her hand down Garfield’s arm. He laughs.

“Don’t tell the pap, the gossip magazines would find a way to eat me for it,” Garfield jokes, looking down at his girlfriend. She raises her eyebrow naughtily. Garfield feels his face heat up and looks around at his friends but they’re all too preoccupied to notice Terra’s blatant suggestiveness. 

“I thought you were getting ready at home and then meeting me at the premiere,” Garfield says.

“I decided I’d stop by early. Maybe get ready with Star?” Terra asks loudly enough for Starfire to hear. Kori nearly drops the bowl she was eating out of. She puts it on the table and squeals. Garfield smiles warmly at Terra. It was moments like this that he remembered why they’ve lasted so long. Getting ready with Starfire was an Olympic sport for anyone. The only people who chose to get ready with Starfire were the people who loved her and wanted to see her happy.

“Oh friend! That would be the most delightful!” Then Starfire pauses.

“What’s wrong Star?” Nightwing says, grabbing her hand.

“Well I had scheduled an appointment with my makeup artist and hair stylist for you and I,” Starfire says. Nightwing’s eyes widen so much behind his mask that Garfield has to put his hand over his mouth to cover his smile. He looks at Raven quickly and realizes that she too is on the verge of laughter behind her book. They make eye contact. Garfield’s laugh has quieted down into a soft smile. Raven lowers her book and smirks back. 

“That won’t be necessary Star!” Nightwing says in one breath. Starfire’s face falls a little. Terra chuckles.

“Star I’d love to join you!” Terra says enthusiastically. Garfield sends a big smile Starfire’s way.

“I know you ladies are going to look spectacular,” he says. “I should go grab my suit though,” he finishes, looking at his watch. He plants a hasty kiss on Terra’s cheek and jogs out the common room. 

* * *

And they did look amazing. Starfire had gone for a shimmering golden dress, her hair falling down her back in loose waves. Cyborg joked that Nightwing had almost choked on his spit when he saw her. Garfield had helped Terra pick out her silk emerald dress so he was less starstruck when he saw her but she looked extra pretty with her hair curled up in a fancy little updo. 

“I have like three hundred pins in my hair,” she had said to him when he helped her out of the limo. He laughed.  
“Looks nice,” he had said.

They are currently on the red carpet and Garfield’s nerves are shot. He always felt trapped at these things. It’s not that he didn’t love his fans but all at once, it was a little much to handle. He didn’t have it as bad as Raven but he did have millions of potential animals living inside him. All the flashing lights gave him a headache. Everyone spoke so loud too, he had to resist the urge to put his hands over his sensitive ears. 

“Changeling himself!” shouts an interviewer into her microphone. Her skin is almost the same shade of orange as Kori’s. Garfield smiles at her but has to grind his teeth together as his ears ring. He tightens his grip on Terra’s hand. She squeezes back.

“And the beautiful Terra,” the interviewer says, directing her attention to Terra. “You guys are quite the power couple. Are you excited to see the movie?” 

Terra has to move her head back an inch as the microphone is shoved into her personal space. The interviewer is way too energetic. Garfield knew way too much about the business to know that this interviewer wasn’t completely sober right now. This kind of energy was not normal around all these people. Even Starfire got tired at these events.

“Of course I am. I know he’s gonna kill it. Like everything else he does in his life,” Terra says, her excitement much more muted that the woman in front of them. Garfield tries to block out the sensory overload so he can fully experience his gratitude at Terra’s honest words but it’s hard.

“Aww! So sweet!” their interviewer squeals and looks at the cameras with comically wide eyes.

“Changeling! This is your first drama. I’m told the plot doesn’t mention the green skin at all,” the interviewer asks. Garfield nods, immediately feeling like there was a heavy ball rolling around in his head, smacking at the walls of his skull. He pushes himself to answer the question though, feeling its importance even through the pain. 

“Michael was interested in me for this role when he wrote it but he couldn’t get past the green skin at first. I loved the character so much that I was even considering doing AI to make me look different. But that...wouldn’t be honest. I am...a green man. And anyways all movies involve some suspension of disbelief. So if we can believe that Sandy Bullock is an astronaut then we can believe that I am a regular man...with regular motivations,” Garfield pauses when he says regular man. He always felt like a regular man so telling people to pretend he was a regular man felt cheap. The interviewer nods and if the blank look in her eyes was any indication, Garfield is certain she didn’t register a word he said. He keeps his smile up despite the fiery ball that grows in the pit of his stomach.

“So, do you guys think kids will be in your future?” the interviewer asks. Garfield feels himself take a step back at the blunt question. He shakes his head. She wasn’t even going to pretend to listen to anything he was saying.

“Uh-” he began shaking his head, trying to erase the disbelief off his face.

“Well I certainly want one or two,” Terra says with a chuckle. Garfield looks towards Terra. A flash goes off to the right of them and it makes the jewels in Terra’s hair shine right into his eyes. He closes his eyes.

“Wha-” he starts and Terra turns to him with an eyebrow quirked.

“What?” she asks. In his peripheral as the interviewer moves the microphone closer to the couple and Garfield feels the heat flow from his core into his limbs. He puts one of his hands in his pockets and clenches it. He smiles at the interviewer.

“Well we should be heading in,” he says politely, his smile tight and uncomfortable. “Thank you for your questions.”

Garfield doesn’t listen to the interviewer’s response as he walks hastily into where the movie will be played, dragging Terra along behind him. When they are far enough from inquiring ears Terra rips her hand out of his.

“What was that?” she asks, arms crossed. Garfield blinks a couple times and shakes his head. He senses that Terra’s anger was directed towards him but that couldn’t be right. 

“She asked you if you wanted to have kids with me and you said ‘uh-’,” Terra says, making a dumb face to mimic how he looked when he answered the question. It plucked at Garfield’s nerves like a guitar string.

“Of course I said ‘uh.’ It’s none of her business,” Garfield says, palms lifted to the air as if this was the most obvious thing ever.

“Do you not want to have kids with me?” Terra asks.

“What? Um-” Garfield shakes his head. He still hasn’t been able to quiet his anxiety from being out there with all those flashes of light. 

“Gar why are you hesitating?” Terra asks.

“Terra, I can barely concentrate on my own thoughts. You know how these things are for me,” he says carefully, placing three fingers on his forehead.

“I just feel like that’s something that should come automatically to you. I know I want to have kids with you,” Terra says.

“We haven’t even discussed having kids ourselves, why would I tell a random reporter about something I should be discussing with you.”

“Because you’re excited about our future. Because you want to tell the world,” Terra says, lips twitching in a way that makes the fireball in his stomach explode.

“Terra we don’t even know if I can have kids,” he wants to shout but he doesn’t trust that no one is around. The restraint it takes makes the veins pop out in his neck. Terra takes a step back and looks him up and down.

“I’ll meet you inside,” she says slowly and turns away from him. He sucks his teeth.

“Wait. Terra,” he says, grabbing her hand to stop her but she snatches it away. He groans.

* * *

Garfield settles down in his seat next to Terra fives minutes later. Nightwing, Cyborg and Starfire give him enthusiastic thumbs ups as he walks past them. Terra doesn’t look at him, her shoulders tense. The theater is much quieter than outside of course and Garfield is able to get his bearings. He practices the mindfulness skills that Irma taught him. Closing his eyes, he mentally catalogues what he feels, tastes, smells, and hears. He opens his eyes when he feels a small hand move over his.

“Are you okay?” Terra asks. Her lips are still in a thin line so he knows she’s still angry but she does look genuinely concerned. He nods and puts a hand over her hand. She nods back, takes her hand back and settles into her seat. 

Garfield looks at the empty seat to the right of him that was saved for Raven and feels a confusing tug in his stomach. He doesn’t have time to interpret it though as he hears the announcement for the start of the movie. He feels a heavy weight in his stomach that leaves him digging himself deep into his chair.

* * *

When the lights slowly start coming back on, Garfield has not felt the weight ease off of him. He took mental notes of the things he could change in his acting as he was watching. The role came out slightly different than he had intended. He’s looking down at his lap and everything is silent, making the weight in his stomach grow so heavy that he is sure he’ll be pulled through the ground at any moment. 

And then he hears something small. Like a phone falling on the floor. And he hears it again. And again. A rhythm. They’re clapping. He looks up at Terra next to him. Her face makeup is smudged and there are tear tracks on her cheeks but she’s looking at him with the most loving smile. He stands up. She puts both her hands on his face.

“Beast Boy, that was amazing,” she says, completely in awe. A few late tears slip from her lids. He looks around at the audience who are all looking at him. Cyborg comes behind him and slaps him on the back aggressively.

“I didn’t know you had it in you grass stain!” he booms. Garfield feels himself chuckle but his being feels a little disconnected from his body. He peaks over Terra’s shoulder and Starfire looks about ready to explode. She is practically vibrating. Garfield is sure she’d burst through the ceiling if Nightwing wasn’t holding onto her hand so tightly. Nightwing looks...proud. Something about that makes Garfield’s eyes sting. He knows Nightwing loves him but between the stink ball and the corny jokes, it wasn’t always that Nightwing admired Garfield.

He receives compliments like this from his costars and the Titans as they all begin to trickle out of the theatre to the after party. He has never felt bigger or more humbly blessed in his life. He and Terra are the last people in the theatre. 

“Listen,” she says when Starfire and Nightwing leave. “I’m sorry about what I said before.”

“I know. I am too,” he says, settling back down into his seat. She squeezes his hand.

“I am so beyond proud of you,” she says, and her eyes become glossy with tears. He gives her a closed lip smile and squeezes her hand again. She stands up and shoots him a questioning look when he doesn’t stand up with her. He puts a hand over hers to quiet her worries.

“I just...need to sit here a while. Kinda doesn’t feel real.” Garfield says in a very small voice. Terra smiles, the jewels in her hair twinkling in the low lighting. 

“I get it,” she says, placing a simple kiss on his cheek. “I’ll catch up with Nightwing and Starfire and meet you there, okay?” 

He nods. 

When she leaves the room Garfield feels himself collapse into his chair. He can’t believe he did it. All those long nights. Going to sets at 5 am with injuries from battles with Plasmus. He feels his throat tighten as he plays with his chain.

“She would have been proud of you.”

His head snaps up. Raven is walking towards him in a giant Hanes sweater, rolled up jeans and white sneakers. He stands up quickly.

“How-” he clears his throat. “How long have you been here?”

“Whole movie.”

Garfield gapes at her.

“I phased into the room where the man handles the film and projector. It was quieter there. Didn’t have to worry about the crowd.”

Garfield nods dazedly and sits back down. Raven walks up and gestures to the seat next to him.

“Can I sit?” she asks, pulling a strand of hair behind her ear.

“It was your seat.”

“Right,” Raven mumbles and sits in her chair. She draws her knees to her chest. Garfield feels a tightening in his chest about how small and adorable she looks. She could stop the world and yet she could fit her whole body in these tiny chairs.

“You look comfy,” he says, feeling an easy smile slip on his face.

“Well I certainly wasn’t going to wear a dress,” she says. The laughter escapes his lips like bubbles. They sit for a few moments in a comfortable silence looking at the empty screen in front of them.

“She would have been proud of you,” Raven says again and Garfield turns to her with a brow arched. She’s looking at something on his chest. He realizes he’s playing with his chain.

“Rita, I mean.” Raven says, playing with her shoe laces. Garfield feels his whole body still. 

“I know that’s why you do all of this,” Raven says, lifting her hand and waving it around. Garfield fixates on her delicate fingers as they weave through the air. He imagines her magic swimming between her fingers. “For Rita.” Raven finishes and Garfield looks back at her eyes again. He notices she’s not wearing any makeup and yet her skin looks completely smooth and clean.

“She would have loved seeing you do this,” Raven says. “You were like...Gregory Peck.”

Garfield feels a breath escape his lips. “Sorry...just... _ Roman Holiday _ was one of Rita’s favorite movies,” he says even though his throat feels weirdly tight and awkward.

“I know.”

“What?”

“Rita and I used to talk,” Raven says, shrugging. Garfield feels himself smiling again despite himself.

“You used to talk?” he asks in disbelief. “To Rita?” Raven crosses her arms, looking slightly peeved. She shrugs.

“Yes...about things.”

“Oh!” Garfield exclaims. Nodding as if Raven had just clarified everything. “You used to talk about  **_things._ ** My bad. Of course you used to talk about  **_things._ ** ” He teases, wiggling his fingers whenever he says ‘things.’ 

“Gar…” Raven says, looking him up and down. It is then that he realized how close he’s gotten to her. Definitely closer than she’s allowed before. He hears Irma saying something about “boundaries” in the back of his mind. Still, it takes him a few seconds to put a respectable amount of space between them.

“Are you coming to the after party?” he asks, when the tingling he just felt in his stomach settles down. Raven shoots him a look. He raises his hands.

“Got it.” 

“I’m going to leave now,” she says, standing abruptly and he feels himself standing with her. He’s smiling at her; his cheeks hurt. She looks up at him and bites her lips. Then she smiles. Not one of her smirks but a full smile. It’s enough to make Garfield feel like he needs to sit down again. 

And suddenly he can’t see her face because she’s wrapped him in a tight hug. He feels the breath leave his lungs.

“I’m happy for you.” Her breath manages to find its way through the buttons of his button up and tickles the hair on his chest. He feels his chest expand. 

And suddenly she’s gone, before he can even wrap his arms around her too. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Author’s Note: The ideas I have for this story are starting to become a little difficult to actualize in a series of one shots so now my story will be a series of interconnected one shots and multi-chapter arcs that lead to Garfield and Raven falling in love. This chapter will be a part of an arc.**

When Raven walks into the kitchen to make herself some chai tea she is surprised to see that it is near noon. She woke up early, even earlier than usual. 4am early in fact. When she sat up in her bed, her body felt taut. She was hyper aware of how the ends of her hair were tickling her shoulders. Something had felt threatening about the pitch black darkness of her room. When she left it felt like something was trailing behind her, waiting to grab at her ankles. For the first time since she came to Titan’s Tower, she felt as if she couldn’t have gotten out of her room fast enough. It was only the feel of the morning sunlight on her skin that had soothed her paranoia but the tension in her shoulders was still there. 

Raven absently places a tea bag into the hot water in her mug as she questions what could have set her body off. They hadn’t watched any scary movies lately. Sometimes her body feels heavy after healing but she hadn’t been seriously injured in any of the battles they’ve had recently. Aside from last night, she was getting her regular eight hours of sleep.  _ You’re not tired.  _ Raven says to herself, putting the mug to her lips. 

She hears someone clear their throat. She shakes the thoughts out of her head and looks at Cyborg who is twirling a whisk enthusiastically and smiling at her in an uncharacteristically goofy manner. He has a chef’s hat on. She raises her eyebrow in question.

“Um?” she asks. When Cyborg doesn’t say anything she speaks again. “Cooking something?”

“Not me,” Cyborg says and suddenly he pulls a dark blue apron from underneath the counter. Raven’s afraid her face is going to freeze with her eyebrow in her hairline. “You’re going to learn how to make waffles.” 

“Cybo-” she begins but pauses when she feels his excitement seeping into her bones. “It’s noon,” she says, in a feeble attempt to do this another day. 

“Is noon too late for breakfast BB?” Cyborg asks Changeling who she realizes was sitting on the couch in pajama bottoms since she walked in. Changeling doesn’t look up from his game.

“It’s never the wrong time to eat breakfast. The real question though is if it’s  **ever** the right time to eat waffles Raven makes,” Garfield says, facing his video game but peeking towards Raven to catch her reaction. Raven unplugs his console with her powers and snatches the apron from Cyborg. 

“Hey!” Garfield grumbles half heartedly, looking as Raven ties the apron around her small waist tightly. “Well I’m clearly going to have to teach you how to make vegan waffles too.”

“Why would I need to learn that?” Raven asked, looking disinterestedly at Garfield over the edge of the recipe Cyborg had given her to skim.

“Aren’t you the one who loves learning new things?” Garfield teases, flicking some flour at her. Raven glares at him, wiping her face with a napkin.

“You’re going to need to put on a shirt,” Raven says, reaching for the flour. Cyborg shakes his head at her and takes the bowl out of her hands.

“Why? Distracting?” Garfield asks, flexing the muscles in his arm. Her eyes linger on his arm. He feels his face heat up. 

“It’s either that or a hair net for your chest,” Raven says flatly. Garfield sticks his tongue out at her.

“Women love the chest hair,” Garfield says, running his fingers over his chest. Raven takes another sip from her tea.  
“Just like they love the ears?” Raven teases, smirking over the rim of her mug. Garfield wiggles his eyebrows, puts his arms out in front of him and shrugs.

“What can I say? I’m delectable all over.” Raven puts a hand to her ear theatrically.

“You said something about being detestable?” Garfield rolls his eyes and for lack of any retort he dips his fingers in the flour bowl and flicks it at her again. 

“Hey, get your germy paws out of my flour bowl!” Cyborg says, holding the flour bowl protectively to his chest.

* * *

An hour later, Raven is trying not to look too proud as she stands over her own waffles. They’re a little browner than waffles should be but they don’t look alive which is more than she can say for the pancakes she made for the team on her sixteenth birthday. Sometime after the trio started mixing the dry ingredients, Starfire and Nightwing had walked into the kitchen and started helping them cut up some fruit and chocolate for toppings. She almost forgets the nervous thrumming in her body.

Until they’re showered in the red light of the tower’s alarm system.

Nightwing’s lackadaisical smile immediately straightens out like a flat sheet of paper as his fingers dance over the large touchscreen in the middle of their common room.

“Reports are of an unidentified being downtown. Definitely not human. Large enough to knock down the abandoned building on 44th street. Three injured and one in critical condition. The attack is coming from the sky so we are dealing with an aerial being. It’s causing fires. Star, you’ll have to be in the forefront. Titans go!” 

And together they dash out into the sky. The first thing Raven feels when they are near the scene is a wall of heat. Her eyes water at the thickness of the smoke. Nightwing gives out directions as they fly closer.

“Raven, Changeling, I’m going to need you two to put out the fires. Cyborg try to contain the battle to a three block perimeter. Star, you and I are going to try to take this thing down. Raven, Changeling, try to join us as soon as you can. We don’t know what we’re up against.”

Changeling transforms into an elephant before his feet even touch the ground, going straight to the nearest fire hydrant. Raven blocks out the fire’s sources of oxygen. They get ninety percent of the fire put out before Garfield changes back into human form and sways. He coughs heavily into his arm. He isn’t able to wear the protective masks that Cyborg designed for them when he switches to animal form. Raven looks as the fire department rolls in and flies down to Changeling. 

“We’re getting out of here,” she says, putting her arm around him. “They can handle the rest.”

Changeling can’t stop coughing long enough to agree. Raven finds a roof at a reasonable distance from the fire but within the three block radius. The minute her energy dissolves Garfield falls to the ground in a coughing fit. She moves quickly to heal him but he raises an arm.

“I’ll be-” he coughs. “Fine.”

Raven debates whether she should leave Garfield here and join Nightwing and Starfire but she’s afraid he is not assessing his injuries accurately. He lays down on the roof and closes his eyes, trying to catch his breath. 

“Alright this guy’s gotta go. He’s already working his way up to my least favorite villains list,” Garfield says, getting on his feet and swaying a little.

“Garfield, maybe you should stay here.”

“I heal fast Rae, I’ll be-” he coughs, sticking his finger up when he sees she’s about to protest. “Fine Raven. I’ll be fine.” 

“You heal  **_faster_ ** Garfield.  **_Faster_ ** than Nightwing and Cyborg. But you don’t heal **_fast_ ** .”

“Fine, I’ll let you heal me halfway,” Garfield says, shrugging. 

“Fine?” Raven growls when she puts her hand on his chest and realizes how much smoke he’s inhaled. She does her best to glare at him without breaking her concentration.

“But am I dead?” Changeling jokes. Raven wonders if she should stop healing him and just strangle him now. In five minutes he’s breathing a little more normally but Raven doesn’t even try to move her hand. Garfield grabs her wrist immediately interrupting her concentration.

“We agreed on half way.”

“You’ll need your energy.”

“So will you. Now let’s go, the team needs us, ” Gar says, shapeshifting into a bird before Raven can stop him. 

* * *

In the past Raven has struggled to discern between her general cynicism and her intuition. But as she approaches the battle all the nervous energy in her consolidates into a certainty that something is not right. She is lost in the clarity of that feeling when she feels fireworks of pain explode at her side as a force rams into her. Her power shoots out blindly in defense but she can’t get a clear image of what she’s up against as they plummet to the ground. She is smacked against the floor with surprising restraint. Raven immediately attempts to gather her wits long enough so that she can phase through the floor until she hears it.

“Hello my sweet Raven,” the voice sounds saccharine as it practically sings into Raven’s face. She’s frozen.

“Malchior? That’s impossible,” she mumbles, the curse she put on him ringing over and over in her mind. It was a solid curse. He was trapped in a book. In her room. If he was out that could only mean... Raven feels heat bubble up in her stomach and shoot up her throat. She was going to be sick. 

_ Someone had been in her room. _

“Surely you can understand that there are things beyond your understanding. Just remember all of the things I taught you,” he says. His red eyes look as if they are twinkling as a huge claw runs down the side of her cheek. Raven moves her face away instantly. Malchior tightens his hold on her waist. Raven tries frantically to conjure up any of her power.

“Or do you only like to remember the things we did in this form.” 

And suddenly Raven feels his heavyweight transform into something more supportable. He was back in the form he originally took when he toyed with her six years ago. 

“How did you-” Raven struggles against the grip he’s placed on her wrists and legs. Surely she can bring up enough energy to displace a man who weighs 160 pounds. 

“Did you tell your friends about  **_everything_ ** we did locked in your room? In the dark of night,” Malchior leers, voice dripping with honey. He grips her wrists with one hand as the other inches up the curve of her ribs. Her eyes darken.

“Get the fuck off of me,” she says and propels him into the air just in time for Changeling to ram into his side as a rhinoceros. 

“Friend Raven!” Starfire says as she zooms over to her friend and helps her to her feet.

“How did he get out of the book?” Nightwing asks when he lands next to Starfire. 

“I don’t know,” Raven mumbles, looking with wide eyes as Garfield engages with the dragon in dinosaur form.

“How will we get him back in?” Starfire says, her arm still protectively around Raven’s waist. Raven also doesn’t know the answer to that. She’s afraid whatever answer she gives will come out of her mouth with the mug of tea she had for breakfast.

So she doesn’t say anything.


	4. Chapter 4

Malchior’s been alive for centuries, and what he can’t match them with in terms of tactic, he makes up for with archaic incantations. Raven, who has studied magic her whole life, takes twice as long to come up with counter attacks for every attack Malchior orchestrates. While her four teammates are adept at countering his physical attacks, Raven is the only one with experience in the otherworldly. So in the intervals when her teammates were spent, huffing on the floor, cut up and bruised, Raven tries her best to twist her tongue around foreign words that’ll at least give Malchior pause. 

Garfield turns into a whale and drops his full weight on Malchior’s head. Only to be flicked across the street. Malchior didn’t even need to strain himself. A few words and Garfield was flying. Nightwing, a formidable opponent to almost anyone, can only throw explosives at the dragon as a distraction. During this time, Starfire and Cyborg blast the beast as frequently and heavily as possible. Nightwing runs up the beast’s neck, using his baton to poke and prod at sensitive areas like the eyes and ears. 

Malchior flexes his chest and tosses them all to the ground like rag dolls.

“Azarath Metrion-” Raven is interrupted when Malchior spits fire at her forcing her to phase through the ground. 

“I must admit, you all have sharpened your skills significantly. The green one isn’t as incompetent as you painted him to be my dear heart,” Malchior chimes. Raven’s throat is tight and burning with the restraint it’s taken to reign in her anger. 

“What do you want from me?” Raven asks through clenched teeth, her powers shoot out like static shocks between her fingers. Malchior bends his long neck down, his tongue swirling through his sharp fangs.

“What more can I ask for when you have given me everything _. _ ” 

“Quiet!” Raven growls from the deep recesses of her chest, a place she very rarely pulls from. A dark, bubbling place. 

And Malchior giggles gleefully. 

“You still hide. Timid girl,” Malchior hisses. “What point is there to feigning innocence when I’ve known the ravenous appetite within you?” 

Raven’s powers crack the road between them.

“Why won’t you tear me down? Wouldn’t it be satisfying to have me  _ rrrrumbling  _ under you again.” Malchior laughs, spitting small bursts of fire between his words. Malchior’s body dips into the cracks Raven’s powers make in the ground. Raven feels her hands go limp beside her.

“I was  _ fifteen _ ,” Raven says, her voice warbling as if she is speaking through water. Malchior snarls.

“You are an insatiable demon!” Malchior says, his voice gaining an sharp edge it didn’t have until this point. “And a willing, enthusiastic participant in everything we did.” 

“I was fifteen!” Raven repeats, louder, accompanied by an energy blast that knocks Malchior back a couple of inches. Malchior tilts his head back and laughs.

“You were desired...which is much more than you can say about yourself before I came into your life.” 

Raven’s next blow hits Malchior at the same time that Starfire and Changeling do, and he actually stumbles back a few steps. Long enough for Garfield to turn into a dinosaur and sink his teeth into Malchior’s neck. Malchior cries out and quickly grips Garfield tightly in his palm. Garfield transforms into a bird and moves to escape.

“Ah, ah, ah green man. I wasn’t done with you,” Malchior says, and he forces Garfield to transform into a fish. Garfield plummets and flops into Malchior’s palm.

“Turn him back,” Raven threatens, using her powers to try to encapsulate Garfield’s fish form. Malchior mumbles something, flicks his wrist and Raven is tossed back. Her concentration is broken. She immediately tries again but is faced with a similar result. Garfield flops around energetically in Malchior’s palm.

“Turn him back!” 

“You want to save this creature. The boy who snuck into your room and listened into our conversations because he was so utterly surprised that someone could love you-” Malchior chuckles. “-or at least feign to.”

Raven feels lava erupting in her chest. She shoots her energy at Malchior’s elbow. It’s enough force for Garfield to flop out of his hand. He immediately turns into a fly and escapes. 

“Have you come out of the book to converse?” Raven growls and blasts Malchior squarely in his chest. “Your escape is temporary.” Another blast. “You are capable of a lot. But I have leveled an entire world since I vanished you to your book.” The last sentence comes out in a deeper, booming voice. It comes from a purposefully untapped reservoir of chaotic power in Raven; it fills her with the weight of it’s darkness. She feels her eyes start to split. The next blast causes Malchior to fall to his knees but Raven can still see an amused twinkle in his eye.

“No dear, that was your father’s doing, do not mistake his ability for your own.”

“I vanished him too,” Raven’s voice sounds like the scratch of a snow plow scraping against ice packed snow. She wraps her powers around Malchior’s neck and lifts him off the ground. 

“Have you?” Malchior grins. Raven’s powers falter and Malchior drops to the ground. The next energy burst that comes from her is so uncontrolled and unexpected that it hurts as it tears through her corporeal form and tosses Malchior into the ground. The pavement ripples around him and she drags him through the street pulling up pavement underneath his body. 

“You think I fear you?” Raven asks, tone even, head tilted. Her eyes have fully split. She’s pounding car after car into him. They hit him like bullets. “You pull your power from the darkness. I  **am** the darkness.” Raven squishes him further into the ground. “You will return to your book or I will drag you into the fiery depths of the world.”

The open holes in Malchior’s body project blood onto the surface below him. When he smiles at Raven this time, blood dribbles out of the corner of his mouth.

“I like it better there anyways.”

And suddenly, he’s gone. 

* * *

Raven can’t focus on anything as the team reaches the Tower. She’s trying to hold every bit of herself together with thread. She’s all filled up and she can feel it in the tightness in her throat, the stinging in her eyes, the pressure in her head, the tension in her clenched fingers. One wrong move and…

She was afraid of what she might do in this state.

She sees the cold waffles on their dining room table. She splinters.

She can feel Nightwing’s burning desire to ask her questions. It pushes at her fragile composition like wind on a teetering children’s blocks tower. 

“We will talk after I meditate,” she bites out, not bothering to look back at her team.

But when her bare feet touch the common room floors, it is pitch black outside. She usually hovers over the ground; she hated whenever her feet felt dirty. But her body was exhausted. She needed to feel the cold beneath her feet.

She made a truce with her emotions, but still feels a slight push and pull inside of her gut. She wants to sleep. But she didn’t have a room until Cyborg and Nightwing took a look around it for clues. She had been on the roof. Her teammates hadn’t even tried bothering her, recognizing she needed space. She faintly hears Garfield on the phone beyond the entrance to the common room.  _ He must be updating Terra _ . She thinks to herself.

She grabs the tea mug she had just put in the microwave and sits on the counter, resting the bottom on her feet against the door to the spice rack. It was grounding to feel something solid beneath her. She takes a sip of her tea and feels it spread tendrils of comforting warmth throughout her body.

For the most part, Raven was content with her life. But tonight, she wonders why anything couldn’t work out for her normally. She fully believes the universe always balanced itself out. In almost every creation myth she’s ever read there was always an Evil Twin and a Good Twin. Things were never **_all_ ** bad. But today she lets herself sit in the feeling that she has monopolized grief. 

“On the phone with Terra?” Raven asks, when she feels Garfield tiptoe nervously into the kitchen. He slumps in relief.

“Yeah,” he mumbles, reaching for the bag of popcorn in the cabinet. He sits on the counter next to her, offering her some popcorn. She politely declines. Silence fills the gap between them like a balloon, pushing against her until she feels like it’s going to explode.

“You know- I mean- How are you feeling?” Garfield asks, eventually, fingers rubbing his neck raw. The popcorn bag is long discarded. Raven brings her tea to her lips and stares blankly at the fridge, contemplating how to answer that question when Garfield suddenly coughs. It sounds painful, like a car struggling to start. Raven’s eyes widen and she puts her mug down. She moves in front of Garfield, forcing herself in the space between his legs but making sure not to get too close.

“Rae, you don’t need to. You’ve already done-” he begins to say, grabbing her wrist. Raven looks at him, eyes wide. Garfield’s close enough to see the dark purple rim around her irises. 

“Please,” she whispers in a voice that is just high enough for him to hear with his sensitive hearing. His hand drops limply at his side. She debates hovering her hand over his chest but doing so means she’d have to extend her powers a little more to heal him and she is really so very tired. So she lays her hand directly on his chest, peaking at him through her lashes to make sure he is consenting to her touch. His eyes are fixed on her face and she has to look away. She watches as her thin fingers get partially obscured in the curls of hair on his chest. 

“I’m sorry.” she says, once she starts healing him. She looks up at Garfield tentatively and notices his jaws twitch a little. “He transformed you. I’m sorry,” she mumbles again lamely. She feels herself shiver at the memory of her doing the same to Garfield all those years ago.

She sees the veins on Garfield’s arm bulge as he clenches the edge of the counter.

“Not your fault,” Garfield says simply, but the bite in his tone makes Raven feel like he’s just trying not to push her. He’s gotten good at that.

“I was the one who let him out the book the first time,” Raven mumbles, looking at her feet between them. Her index finger nervously taps against Garfield’s chest. Garfield grabs Raven’s other hand.

“Rae this is not your fault. He  **_manipulated_ ** you,” Garfield says, moving his head lower so that he can look Raven directly in the eyes.. Raven removes her hand now that Garfield is fully healed. Garfield feels the cold air immediately assault the place her hand once laid. Raven sits next to Garfield on the counter once more and drops her head into her hands. Maybe it’s because they’re talking in such low tones. She feels like they’re in a tiny little bubble. Raven feels the latch to Pandora’s box open up inside her.

“I slept with him,” she whispers into her hands, but she knows that Garfield is listening. “Before I released him in his dragon form.”

It’s quiet again and Raven feels it settle onto her hunched over back, getting heavier and heavier. She feels her palms grow wet.

“You were fifteen Raven. He was...centuries old,” Garfield says. “That could never have consensual.” 

Raven doesn’t lift her head. She’s told herself those words many times. She’s hoping one day they’ll make her feel less stupid. Raven tries to make her shaky breathe as quiet as possible. 

“I don’t know how to put him back in,” she whispers, her voice sounding clogged and muffled behind her hands. Raven feels herself shaking. Malchior was out and every dream and feeling she locked away after him felt like it was clawing its way out of her too. She feels Garfield move her hands away from her face gently. 

He’s kneeling in front of her and Raven can feel the anger bubbling underneath him like a current.

“We are going to put him back where he came from.” He says it like a promise, never breaking eye contact and Raven feels herself nodding despite her intuition telling her that Malchior was never going to be locked away completely and forever. 

Raven moves to put her sink in the cup.

“I’m-” she clears her throat. “ Going to sleep on the couch.” 

Garfield nods and she feels weird for telling him that. She turns her back on him and shakes her head slightly.

“...you could always sleep on one of my bunk beds,” Garfield mumbles and Raven drops her cup in the sink a little louder than intended.

“Thank you, but I need some space tonight,” she mumbles, keeping her back to Garfield. She can feel him nod. She moves to the common room doors with the intention of looking for some spare sheets for the night.

“Rae-” Gar starts. Raven turns just as the doors open up behind her. “You know he was wrong right?”

Raven waits for him to elaborate.  
“The team... ** _I_** want you here. I have **_always_** wanted you here.”

Raven places her hand gently on her neck and nods once. Then a couple other times. She turns her back on Garfield, knowing that she couldn’t sit in her sadness for long with a family like hers.

* * *

It’s still pitch black outside when Raven is shaken from her sleep.

“I’m sorry to wake you up Rae,” Cyborg says, lips in a thin line. She looks at the clock behind him and blinks a couple times to get her eyes to focus. She sits up despite feeling like something was pulling her back onto the sofa.

“Is everything okay?” she asks groggily.

“I ran a code to look through our security system for any unidentified people in our rooms.”

“They would have tried to avoid the camera,” Raven says, pushing a piece of hair behind her ear.

“That’s what Nightwing and I thought too...” Cyborg starts. “But we found someone.”

Raven feels like ice was poured down her back. She sits upright.

“Came into your room while we were all asleep,” Cyborg says, then bites his lip. Raven watches as he holds the iPad awkwardly. Raven reaches out to the iPad and looks at the security footage on the screen. 

Raven feels bile rise to the back of her throat, making her sweater feel too hot. She feels her vision tunnel as she looks directly into the eyes of the man she’s certain had let Malchior out of his book. He was looking straight at the security camera. Raven feels herself shiver.

“Do you recognize him?” Cyborg asks softly. Raven nods, her head feels filled with cotton.

“He’s my brother.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Your brother?” Nightwing asks, leaning back in his seat. Raven watches as his eyes glaze over. He’s running through plans in his head before she even gives him a full account of their opponent. Raven nods, although Nightwing isn’t fully paying attention at this point. She looks at all her teammates who are much more attentive.

“I will assume that you do not hold brotherly affection for this man?” Starfire asks. Raven nods again. 

“Trigon has fathered hundreds of sons after me, but the six following me are the most powerful. Each of their powers coincide with the seven deadly sins.”

“But there are only six of them?” Garfield asks, his folded hands are supporting his chin as he leans in close. 

“I’m the seventh,” Raven says. That stops the questions for a few moments.

“But you powers aren’t-” Cyborg pauses, rubbing his bald head. “Sinly?”

Raven quirks her eyebrows. “Shooting black energy from my fingertips not dark enough for you?”

“You know what I mean,” Cyborg grumbles. Raven nods.

“The pride within you is tangible to me; I can manipulate it,” Raven says, crossing her legs. The team looks at her with parted lips. It was like their questions hung like weights on their lower jaw. She sighs. “I can play with the levels of pride in you so that it obscures all other systems. Biological. Mental. Emotional.”

“Wait, so you can sense how proud we are?” Garfield asks. Raven nods. “You must have a joy ride with boy wonder over there.” 

Nightwing scoffs. Garfield lifts his hands up, not even trying to erase his crooked smile. 

“Why have you never used this power before?” Nightwing asks, finally escaping the wheel that’s turning in his head.

“Why haven’t I turned someone into something they’re not?” Raven asks, hoping that in asking the question, Nightwing already found his answer. Nightwing seems to understand her as he leans back in his seat. Raven still feels the need to answer as the rest of her team stares at her expectantly.

“The villains we face rarely have a deficiency in pride. Besides, pride is a tricky thing. Given too much you will become foolish and illogical, convinced you have the right answer to everything. But given just enough,” Raven lets her eyes linger over Nightwing. “You become a detail oriented, confident leader.” Nightwing bows his head gracefully.

“The thing is, there is no set amount of pride that divides the foolish people from the well adjusted. Most of us have momentary spikes in our pride. There is no telling whether these spikes are good or bad. It’s dependent on how people use it. I don’t have the foresight to tell you how someone will react if they’re made more proud.”

“‘Cept for Adonis,” Garfield says, then blushes when all eyes turn to him. “What? That guy is always one spike of pride away from falling on his own sword.”  
Raven ponders that and shrugs.

“I’m not in the occupation of guessing someone’s limits. Besides it’s different when he’s in animal form.”

“How?” Garfield asks, leaning into the conversation. Raven pauses.

“My ability to sense emotions works best on humans.”

“You are able to sense mine,” Starfire chimes in. Raven nods at her.

“Things like happiness and sadness essentially feel the same in all beings. Between full human beings, the difference in how they feel emotions is almost imperceptible. But your body is wired differently. You’re Tamaranean and I have not enough access to Tamaraneans to get any baseline data on what your emotions read like. For example, your powers are connected with your ability to feel happiness. You practice happiness constantly, therefore your happiness is more potent. Because your happiness is so loud, it can be difficult for me to register the extent of your sadness.”

“It must be difficult to sense what I’m feeling,” Garfield says in a thoughtful whisper. Raven looks at him. “Every animal I turn into has different motivations. Some of them can be very strong.”

“Your animal forms are never permanent. While you can rearrange your DNA, it’s never fully stable. Your body will always want to revert to your human form,” Raven says. When she thinks about it though, Raven knows there is another form always pulling at Garfield’s control. She purses her lips, pausing to figure out where she’s going with this. “No matter which form you take, there is always something essentially you that I can sense clearly because I know...well I know you.” Garfield looks at her. Raven clears her throat. 

“And I know Star,” Raven says, moving her gaze from Garfield to Starfire. “I can sense what both of you are feeling but sometimes it can be a little harder for me to give it a name.”

“So the brother on the footage? Which is he?”

“Jesse. Envy.” 

The team is silent for a while. 

“Alone they’d be dangerous. Together, coupled with someone who understands centuries of mystical arts…” Raven trails off. Nightwing nods two times, evenly, militaristically. Every once and a while Raven has to marvel at how certain Nightwing can be about things completely out of his element.

“Why are your brothers attacking now?” Nightwing asks in a way that makes it clear to Raven that not knowing is not an option. She pauses.

“My brothers’ motivations are tied directly to my father’s.”

“Cool so we’re up against old ass magic dragon, sin and evil incarnate,” Garfield runs a hand through his hair, tugging at his roots a little. 

“We need to cut this plan off at the roots,” Nightwing says, ignoring Garfield’s comment. “We start with Trigon.” Raven’s is rarely overcome with emotion but she has to fight to trap the sardonic chuckle bubbling from her chest behind her closed lips.

“Trigon is trapped in another dimension,” Raven says with a finality that would make anyone else drop the subject.

“So was Malchior,” Nightwing says quickly. His four teammates snap their heads to him. “Sorry,” he mumbles, looking to the floor.

“You’re not wrong,” Raven says after a moment, then shrugs one shoulder. “But Malchior’s escape is much easier than Trigon’s. Very few beings are able to traverse multiple planes of existence and even fewer are able to go where I put Trigon. Setting him free would be a marvelous feat indeed.”

“Never underestimate your enemies,” Nightwing says, pressing a fist into his palm.

“I don’t. I don’t deny that my brothers are more than likely searching for a way to free my father but he is not yet a part of the equation. We start with my brothers.”

“And if they manage to free your father?” 

“Then at least we won’t have to deal with evil incarnate  **_and_ ** sin  **_and_ ** an old ass magical dragon,” Raven says. Garfield raises his hand for a high five. Raven looks at it before tapping away at the touchscreen in front of the team. Garfield grumbles.

“We need to get supplies to protect ourselves and the tower from sinful influe-”

“Hate to interrupt sister but you were all moving at such a snail’s pace.”

Raven pulls up a protective barrier around her friends before they can even register that someone else is in the room. The man in front of her doesn’t even blink as he plops down on the sofa. Nightwing moves forward purposefully but Raven pushes him back with her powers.

“Leave the barrier and he will play with you like a toy.”

“Now, now, pretty vessel you know we can only enhance people’s natural inclinations,” Jacob says, propping one leg on the back rest of their sofa while the other hangs limply off the edge of the seat. He is sprawled out like a Greek god. His head rolls back. “May I say, this is quite the incestuous little family you have. The lust was rampant when I walked in the room. Although I shouldn’t be surprised Malchior has spoken of your...appetite.”

“Why are you here?”

“Oh why don’t you just drop the barrier? It’s not like you can hold it for much longer anyways. Besides, playing with your friends is not why I am here.”

“You expect me to trust you?” Raven’s voice wavers under the strain of protecting her friends. Even now she can feel Jacob probing the weakest parts of her barrier. 

“No I suppose not,” Jacob says, sending the group a crooked smile. He runs his hand slowly up his leg, over his muscular thigh, and drops it dangerously close to the bulge in his unitard. Then he chuckles.

“Our brothers have sent me to ask you to join our endeavours in freeing our father.”  
“I’d rather die.”

“Ah I said much the same to them. You are much too proud,” Jacob chuckles. It sounds like a bell. 

“Original.”

“Ooh your sentences are getting much shorter. I bet I could push through this barrier of yours now,” Jacob says, rubbing his hands together enthusiastically and sitting up properly in one quick, smooth movement. He eyes Nightwing from head to feat. “I’ve pushed through my fair share of barriers in this lifetime.” 

Jacob winks. Raven clenches her teeth.

“Alas, I don’t feel much like straining myself today although I can assure you my brothers do not know the same restraint. They wanted me to force you to join our side. But I think your high and noble friends wouldn’t let you turn yourself over to us even if I did say...peel their skin off in front of you,” Jacob says. He reaches for a lollipop in the candy basket they keep in the common room and peels off the wrapper. He swirls his tongue slowly over the confection. “Well, I will not waste my energy.” 

Jacob eyes run over the Titans one by one, watching as their muscles twitch with the desire to hurt him. He feels like laughing.

“Protect your tower, conduit. Protect your friends. But as I tell all my lovers, be prepared for the full weight of us.”

Jacob moves to walk out their front door and Raven feels her barrier weaken significantly. Before he leaves Jacob looks over his shoulder with a lascivious smirk.

“And do try to lay with the green one at least once. Your thirst for each other is simply pathetic.”

Jacob leaves.


	6. Chapter 6

There are many things Jacob loves. He loves the soft smacking sound a woman’s lips make when she parts them to let out a little whimper. He’s partial to the whimpers let out after he’s first buried himself in her, the ones towards the end are just a little too high pitched for him. He loves the full chested groan a man makes when he releases. He loves the soft, hesitant touch of a tongue on his lips begging for entrance. And he loves human bars. The precursor to many of these experiences. There is never a shortage of horny people at human bars.

Still, he’s a little disappointed when he walks in at noon to find the bar is empty minus the very tired looking bartender. He rolls his eyes, humans have an arbitrary way of deciding when it is the proper time to imbibe. He almost walks out but he also loves the indulgent food humans decide to fill themselves with. He’s convinced humanity never needed him or his brothers; they have a beautiful way of wrecking themselves. 

Jacob smiles at that thought before the bartender, who apparently is acting as a waiter too, drops the steak and fries in front of him. _No. All wrong._ He almost loses his appetite. He quickly moves his plate approximately two inches away from his fork on the left and approximately two inches away from his knife on the right. He shifts the angle of the napkin in front of him so that it is perfectly parallel to the plate of steak. _There._ _No. Wait._ He grabs his fork and shifts over the two fries that are touching his steak. _Finally, there._ He cuts into his steak at exactly a forty five degree angle. He finishes his steak and fries when he sees them walk in. 

_ Ah a brunch date.  _ He leans back in his chair. The woman is in red heels, her hair tousled in a way that suggests she’s laid with someone but he can’t smell sex on her.  _ She must have spent a good amount of her time achieving that look.  _ She looks annoyed as she drops her purse at the bar. Her date, who looks like he didn’t clean himself up after work, almost bumps into her back because he’s too focused on the recaps of last night’s sport in front of her.  _ What pathetic human entertainment is it? Basketball or football?  _ Jacob questions, then quickly realizes he doesn’t care because he catches a whiff of the woman’s hair conditioner when she flips her hair over her shoulder. 

It was clearly a first date but Jacob didn’t sense a spot of lust in the woman for this man. She’s typing furiously on her little device, red painted nails making a clicking sound against her phone screen. She doesn’t even bother to disguise her annoyance. It’s not like the man was much focused anyways. Jacob sips on his water, watching the pair with interest until the man mumbles something about needing to go to the bathroom. At this point the bartender/ waiter is tending to a group of people who just walked in. 

_ How can I do this cleanly?  _

Jacob moves a table in front of the bathroom entrance with his powers. Then he saunters up to the woman and takes a swift seat next to her. His eyes trace the outline of her full red lips and chin. He looks down the slope of her neck. Where it connects to her chest. His eyes trail down to where her breasts disappear into her shirt. She’s distracted by her phone but jumps up when she’s noticed someone has come near her. Her lips part over brilliant white teeth.  _ Yes.  _ Jacob thinks. He can sense the first inkblots of lust staining her insides as she looks him over. Jacob looks towards the group at the opposite end of the restaurant and at the waiter who walked behind doors to put in their order. Jacob uses his powers to block the waiter’s exit with a jukebox. All the while maintaining eye contact with the woman in front of him.

“That man is too inattentive to be a good lover.” He doesn’t leave her any room to argue. She doesn’t try to. He watches as she moves her drink to her lips, wetting her lips. She puts the drink down. 

“The suggestion there being that you actually are a good lover,” the woman rolls her eyes, putting the glass against her lips again. She shakes an ice into her mouth. Jacob takes the glass from her hand and places it slowly onto the bar. The woman watches him, her lips parted deliciously. He needs to move this along much faster. He flicks a strand of her hair over her shoulder and leans his lips close to her ears so that his lips are touching her with each word.

“I can show you,” Lust says, dropping a hand on her upper thigh. He pulls back slightly, just enough to look in her eyes. “I can show you right now. In this seat,” he says, hand massaging circles into her thigh. He feels the woman’s legs part slightly. He starts stretching at the edges of those inkblots of lust in her the higher up her leg he goes. He moves his hand. “Do you want me to touch you? Right here in the open?” 

The woman nods once and he grins.  
“Spread your legs,” he says. His fingertips graze the edge of her lace panties, where her right leg meets her body. The woman lets out a little breath, looking at the group of people in the corner of the restaurant. Lust places his lips on her ear again.

“They can’t see you,” he says, and he’s done with the whispered touches as he clutches her tightly over her panties. The woman rocks forward with a whimper. He trails his index finger up and down over her slit. The woman looks towards the bathroom.

“He won’t come out,” Lust assures her. “I’m going to finger you in the middle of this restaurant,” Lust says. The woman clutches the edge of the bar. 

“I don’t - ah- know your name,” she says, managing to break his trance momentarily. Lust pushes her panties to the side and touches the outside of her wet lips. She whimpers again and he nuzzles his nose into her neck. 

He has one knuckle inside of her when he feels himself getting pulled back. 

_ Fucking shit.  _

He lands on his feet and turns 360 degrees as quickly as possible. 

Only to recognize that he is in a completely...different room?

A hotel?

Then he recognizes him.

“Was that necessary?” Jacob says, rubbing his wet finger against his pant leg. Jared looks down at the finger Jacob rubbed on his pant leg. His face, with its close lips and dead eyes, shows no glimmer of emotions. Jared takes his time answering Jacob’s question, deciding it was more important to find a comfortable place to sit. He finally decides on the blue, floral print recliner in the corner of the room. The chair looks comically small as Jared sinks his huge, muscular body into it. Jared crosses one leg over the other one and places his hands on his knees. 

“I’m assuming since you are off gallivanting in the streets that you’ve convinced our sister to join our league.” 

Jacob throws his body on the bed, propping himself up on his elbows.

“I’ve done no such thing,” Jacob says, picking at something beneath his nail. Jared pauses. Jacob shifts his own body because he can swear Jared is frozen in position. It’s silent.

“So you’ve handled her teammates,” Jared eventually says, moving nothing but his lips. Jacob says nothing, playing with his nail again. One second Jacob’s looking at his nail and the next he’s dragged off the bed by his shirt. Jared’s face is transformed, his teeth are bared and saliva is running down his chin. 

“Our plan runs on a limited time line,” Wrath booms, his spit landing on Jacob’s face. His human form slips and his two eyes split into four blazing red ones.

“Your plan was sloppy,” Jacob says, forcefully removing himself from Wrath’s grip. “And you are not my maker.” He plops down on the bed again. Jared’s lip twitches as his eyes return to normal.

“Sloppy? You hand an appendage inside of a stranger. In the middle of a bar. At noon!” Wrath booms, and his eyes split back into four again. 

“Okay, either two eyes or four. The back and forth is an unnecessary expenditure of energy,” Jacob sighs, looking up at his brother’s tight face. Jared takes a deep, long breath and his eyes return to normal. He returns back to his seat and sits in almost the exact same position as before. Jacob looks at his nails again.

“If you ruin this plan I will rip out your heart with my bare hands and chew on it,” Jared says clearly and slowly. 

“My heart isn’t the best part of my body anyways. I’m sure I won’t miss it. Now as for everything below the belt…” Jacob trails off. Jared’s jaw ticks.

“Did you at least speak with her?” Jared asks. Jacob looks up at his brother and shoots him a closed-lip grin.

“Sometimes I enjoy completing the task you assign to me.”

“What words did you exchange with her?”

“Well…”

* * *

Gar keeps peeking up from the spice packages in front of him to look at Raven. She was thumbing through the packages slowly and gracefully, like when she turned a page in one of her books. Raven looks up and he has to force himself not to look down. He’s not going to be the one to break eye contact. If she can look him directly in the eyes, he can return the favor. 

“Did you find the anise?” Raven asks, her lips pressed together tightly in a thin line. She looks...slightly annoyed. Garfield can feel that his mouth is hanging open but he can’t make words. It’s the first words she’s said to him since her brother left the common room. He wonders how she can look annoyed right now; had he not heard it properly when her brother announced they wanted to  **_be_ ** together? “Changeling.”

“Right...um...still looking,” he says, hating himself for the nervous way he averts his eyes from hers. He stares down at the packets in front of him but no matter how many times his eyes run over the letters he can’t seem to read the words. He can feel her eyes burning holes into his shirt. He hears her suck her teeth and peaks up to see the bottom of her feet walking away from him toward the crystals section. 

She hadn’t even tried to address what Jacob said when her barrier broke. She just started barking out directions to everyone. _ You go to the florist...And you get the mortar and pestle...And Garfield will come with me to the wiccan shop. _ And she had looked at him directly in the eye, with her chin tilted up as if daring him to question whether it was odd for them to go on a solo trip after what had just been said. He thought she was insane. Did she not have a hundred questions in her head right now? She was more militant and precise than Nightwing.

_ Anise! _ He plucks the package. Finally, his eyes were working again. 

_ Raven. Sexually attracted to him.  _ He drops the anise package.  _ Holy crap.  _ He’s spent the whole past hour chewing on what she could possibly be thinking that he hadn’t even thought about that. How did one even begin to think about that? They are close friends now, always had been, but Garfield is sure he isn’t exaggerating when he remembers that there was a solid year where Raven would roll her eyes anytime Garfield parted his lips. Raven? Wanting to be near him? **_Desiring him?_ ** Garfield shakes his head. He looks at Raven who places a purple crystal into her bag. Her eyes meet his. Again. He scampers to pick up the anise package and hits his head against the side of the table. Garfield clenches his eyes tightly, resisting the urge to yelp out. After a few moments he peaks at Raven through his lashes.

Raven’s lips are in a tight line again. Her shoulders look straight and tight. He feels irritation pricking his own skin like a thousand little needle points. She could at least look a little concerned. She tilts her chin to the checkout line.

They wait in line, shoulder to shoulder, with probably exactly six inches between their bodies. How does she not feel the weight in the air? He looks at her, purposefully, waiting for her to turn her head and meet his eyes. She’s staring intently at the potion bottles behind the cash register with such a disinterested look that Garfield is sure that she had to do a lot of work to make her lips the perfect distance between a frown and a smile. Because there is _ absolutely no way _ . He knows she has a tight rein on her emotions but she cannot possibly be this comfortable in the knowledge that was just dropped on them. But Gar isn’t about to bring it up in the middle of a wiccan shop. 

So they stand in line. Silently. 

Then take a long flight back to the Tower. Silently.

Then enter the elevator of the Tower. Silently.

“So we’re going with ignoring it?” Garfield challenges, arms crossed over his chest. Raven glances at him. “Just trying to make sure we’re on the same page.” 

Raven looks forward and doesn’t say a word. He notices her fingers are pink because of how tightly she’s clenching the plastic bag of supplies. 

“And taking it out on shopping bags apparently,” he says. She loosens her fingers immediately. 

“We have more pressing issues.”

Garfield pauses. They’re almost to the common room.

“If we talk about it it would probably be a lot less awkward.”

“It’s not awkward.”

“You sure? Because you’ve been switching from making the most eye contact I’ve ever seen you make with anyone to starring anywhere but my face for the past half an hour.” 

“I’m so eternally sorry if I haven’t been keeping track of how long I’m looking at you Changeling. My brothers are trying to release my father from Hell.” She says it like she’s seconds away from picking her nails but of course that would require her to look anywhere but the elevator buttons she’s intently focused on.

“Yeah I know, one of them told all our friends we wanted to fuck each other,” Garfield says and he knows its crude but if she’s going to be this difficult he’s going to give himself room to act the same. 

“Jesus-” Raven exclaims, smacking a hand to her forehead and turning to face him. He thinks she looks kind of like a tornado. 

“I think your brothers are a little further south than him,” he says. Because apparently he wants to die young. 

“Clearly Jacob is saying anything to distract us,” Raven bites out, pointing a finger at his chest. He’s come a long way from the sixteen year old boy seeking constant validation but her words make him play with the point of his left ear.

“Clearly?” Garfield asks lamely. Raven’s eyes widen at the same time he realizes he wants to vacuum the word back into his mouth. Raven pauses, her fingers now curled in a loose fist between them. 

“Yes. I mean- you’re not attracted to me?” Raven mumbles, her words tumbling past her lips in a weird pitch. Garfield has long since sucked his lips into his mouth, hoping nothing else would come out. He tries to find the right words. ‘No I’m not’ would do just fine, he tells himself. 

But instead the elevator opens up on the whole team. Plus Aqualad. And Terra. His girlfriend. Raven’s already halfway out of the elevator. She turns away from Garfield in a millisecond but it’s slow enough for Garfield to watch the way her lips return to their frustratingly perfect line. It takes Garfield a few more seconds to exit the elevator with the same level of nonchalance. 


End file.
